Vitamin and mineral supplements for human and veterinary use are commonplace. Recently, it has become recognized that certain groups of the human population may require quite high intakes of minerals to prevent or alleviate certain disease states. For example, the medical management of certain anemias can be handled rather well by increasing the daily intake of iron. Some diets, or heavy physical exercise, may require the intake of considerable quantities of minerals apart from those generally obtained through what otherwise would be considered a balanced diet.
Mineral supplements, such as those commercially available, are useful in many circumstances where enhanced mineral intake is desirable. However, adhering to a regimen which requires the separate intake of mineral supplements can give sub-optimal results, simply because the regimen requires a change in the normal habits and practices of the user. It would be more convenient if the minerals could be included in ordinary foods and beverages, so that they would be ingested without extra attention, planning and implementation on the part of the user.
There are well-recognized problems associated with adding mineral supplements to foods and beverages. For example, many such supplements tend to be rather insoluble, and, therefore, not very useful in beverages, or tend to have a bad taste or unacceptable mouth feel. Iron supplements tend to discolor foodstuffs, or to be organoleptically unsuitable. Moreover, it is particularly difficult to formulate foods and, especially, beverages, containing iron supplements, inasmuch as iron compounds tend to form insoluble iron hydroxide polymers in solution and interact with other minerals, such as calcium, as well as with other materials in foods and beverages. This interaction not only affects the organoleptic and aesthetic properties of the foods and beverages, but also undesirably affects the nutritional bioavailability of the iron supplements.
It would be desirable, therefore, to have iron supplements which are organoleptically acceptable and compatible with foodstuffs, beverages and other minerals, especially calcium, as well as being nutritionally available.
It is an object of the present invention to provide iron mineral supplements which fulfill these unmet needs.
It is a further object of this invention to provide foodstuffs, beverages and beverage concentrates which are supplemented with iron.
These and other objects are secured herein, as will be seen from the following disclosure.